Thursday, April 29, 2010

lame title I know but the creative juices for title making isn't flowing.....

On Tuesday I went to a baby shower as part of my gift I made some thank you cards---there were only ten. I offered to make how ever many she needed here are the cards I finished yesterday:

I'm loving dry embossing! It's so easy and gives SO much to a project. I'm also putting my old red sizzix machine to use. The thank you stamp is from Hero Arts, the pattern paper is DCWV baby girl line, and the butterfly was cut with my Cricut machine from the Hannah Montana cartridge. They turned out nicely and look SO MUCH better in person.

My garden is coming right along. My DD took these pictures for me yesterday... My strawberries don't like the heat so much but are producing a few berries.

I didn't kill my tomato plants! Man are they finicky....I learned not to give them so much water and they both have survived--luckily...I just give them a little water and leave them a lone and they're doing great.

Funny thing about this summer squash, it was the last plant on the tray at Lowe's. It was sickly and small--I REALLY wanted some, so I bought the plant. You would NEVER know that this plant was ever little and looking like it was going to die. Kind of exciting to see food in the garden. My Basil plant is just taking off too--smells GREAT. Not sure what I'm going to use it for, but I did read that they like the heat. I'll have to take pictures of our other experiments in the yard, so far we have only lost one plant! What's cool is that I can take this back to the store and get a refund. ALL plants have a year warranty even the annuals. SWEET!

Well, I've got to run to the school to help in the classroom. Thanks for stopping by! Hope your Thursday is a GREAT one!

Monday, April 26, 2010

For my tip of the day over at Scrapbook Circle I shared how to make the fabric flower featured on this card:

Don't be afraid it's not as hard, I just like lots of pictures to do the talking for me.

First off you are going to need a couple of strips from your paper. I just hand cut down the outside of these two particular designs:

Next you are going to need to peel off the adhesive backing.

I decided that I would start with the back of my flower first. I looped my fabric, continuing....

always making sure that the front side is showing....

Until I had made a complete flower. I then hot glued the end and any other loose pieces together....

This is what my finished back looked like, remember this will be covered up. I still decided that I want the other side to be my front side so I turned it over.

Next, I took my "front" part of the flower and started to roll....

Once I did that twice I twisted the fabric until the front side was showing again, this gives the flower dimension and is TOTALLY up to you how many times you want too.....

I twisted and rolled and occasionally hot glued so that it wouldn't "let go" until I had a tail (are you liking my technical terms?).

I then glued the "tail" over the end of the flower.

I next glued the pink flower to the green, then adhered my pearl (I bought my pearl in the bead department at Walmart--they came on a strand 66 pieces for like $1.96). I then decided I wanted my back petals to be closer to my middle part of the flower so I glued those up.

What's fun about this flower is that you can make it into a hair clip too! I had so much that I made another using a spare piece of corduroy:

Total time to make this is roughly 10 minutes. Be patient with yourself and you will enjoy the fruit of your effort. Real quick Elizabeth Kartchner (the maker of this FABULOUS paper also did a tutorial on how to make a different kind of flower using this paper. You can watch it HERE.

Thanks for stopping by! Nothing really creative today just catching up on laundry and house cleaning from last week....ugh! :)

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Okay first off! Phew! I've had an exhausting week! I went to 6th grade science camp with DD (Monday--Wednesday), we had fun--but BOY was I tired. I came home and took a 2 hour nap, then got up made dinner and went to bed early. The next day (Thursday) I went to a musical for younger DS, and another field trip for middle DS! Then that night went to the musical again! Yesterday, I took another nap--I finally feel somewhat myself! CRAZY!! But I had a lot of fun and I was glad that I could go!

NOW for the good stuff! The May kit for Scrapbook Circle is AWESOME!! I know I say this EVERY TIME but it is! At CHA this one of my favorites:

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

A few fun things about this layout you might not know....This paper is actually Christmas paper--if you look closely at the flower I made you can see the word Holidays on it....another little item is that I sprayed the letters and flowers with mist by Tattered angels...the center of the flower is actually the center of a letter (I think it was P.)And finally the picture was printed out on Cardstock, the same as the journaling....

I REALLY like how this layout turned out and so did my girl. And THAT is what is important!

Speaking of my girl we are currently at Science camp, it's up in a much cooler part of AZ. SO fun! Thanks for stopping by today--make it a GREAT one!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

I made this card using bits and pieces. I even used the left over cutouts to make a mask and create grass using a pen and mist. The rubon is from American Crafts and the jewel is from my stash--it's it pretty? I just cut out the "flowers" distressed them with different colored ink. Then layered them up and glued the jewel on. The center of the flower is the center of the circle on the paper. the turquoise color just spoke to me--love it!

I'm recovering from a LOOOOOOONG soccer day yesterday. We left the house at 7:45am and really didn't get home until like 7pm. We had early games then parties for all three kiddos--EVERYONE was exhausted. One of my boys said I don't want to see any more (pool) water or food! We had a great time and saw some sun. I thought I was doing great not getting a farmers tan this season....uh...yesterday I made up for the WHOLE season. It's not pretty at all.....

and glued the uneven edges together. Then tucked the glued edge underneath. I really like how these flowers turned out. If you notice I made a different center with the larger blue flower, I used the fabric paper to do that. I also used the fabric paper to do the ruffle edges--I used a glue gun to keep it all together.....

Thanks for stopping by today! I've got to run kiddos have half day and we have a BUSY weekend. Have a GREAT day!

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

So exciting! I was featured on the Bella Blvd. blog today! About a month ago I won a HUGE amount of product from their blog crawl. What made it even more fun for me was that TWO of my scrappy-blog friends were also featured! One was Tanisha Long (and yes, I've met her!) the other was Claude Campeau.Congrats girls!

I've been busy playing with the some of the rest of my Bella stash:

I HAD to use my glitter glue and jewels....enhances the beauty--right?!

For this fun tree, I obviously used glitter glue but I also used some studio Matte by ranger (hey it was free at CHA) it can be used as a glue, a paint extender, and more AND it's waterproof when it's dry....I liked the extra umphf...that it gave the tree.....

So these pictures magically appeared on my desk....great paper mix, and seriously what is up with my hair? Look how cute my Great grandma, Nanny & mommy look?

I LOOOOVE how the sun turned out on this one. I hand cut out the sun then stamped it with a background stamp by autumn leaves with rusty hinge distress ink. I also distressed the edges--SWEET! I love my distress ink! And bling--always and ANY time I can get it on a page! :)

Okay, my turtle--I LOVE him! I stickled the edges then filled it in with Matte accents by Ranger. It looks cool in person.

The page I made this week for the sketchy Thursdays sketch entitled My buddy Ella is getting a lot of attention--THANK YOU! It was featured on the facebook page over at Sketchy Thursdays! pretty Sweet! Thanks again Stacy for giving me the heads up!

Thanks for sticking with me on this rather long post! I'm gonna leave the large pictures, can you tell me if they are hard to see? Thanks so much!

Monday, April 12, 2010

I did this layout yesterday using the April kit from Scrapbook Circle, funny sometimes what you see in your head then what comes out. I wasn't sure how I was going to scrap these pictures, I really like it. I let the paper do the talking.....

This week is AIMS testing, it's statewide. We are to make sure we feed the kids well so they can be alert. I just hope that my boys that have been sick can endure. They still felt bad on Saturday--almost a week.

We've discovered two more series we really like and funny thing they are both put out by the BBC. Robin Hood--I heard about it on someone Else's blog, and have been catching up on Netflix instant watch. Merlin--is the second and it is currently on the Sci Fi channel. The kids ask to watch it with me and get excited when we do. Fun to watch something together as a family that isn't going to expose something that isn't necessary.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Okay, so blogger is being weird! Tried to upload this using photo bucket--it was HUGE. Ah, well. This was a fun layout to do about my boy and his buddy Ella the puppy:

the paper used is from Bella Blvd. I added some pop dots to the every moments--it gave it the little lift it needed. What I loved about this picture is that I took it with my phone. It isn't that great but it captures the love that this little boy and this dog have for one another. AND yes, she loves to be held like that!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

I made this lovely banner as an entry into the Lily Bee Designs DT call a while back. Obviously I didn't make it but I LOVED how this project came from my mind to fruition:

all the products--minus the tulle tie--is from Lily Bee Designs.

I've got two sickies now. The first one was driving me nuts (he felt better and was wrestling with the dog--NO fever--on Tuesday) I sent him back to school yesterday. He woke up with a fever today! The other one came home with a fever and sore throat. WHATEVER this is I've had enough! I feel bad for the kiddos because they just don't feel well.

Thanks for all the notes of concern. They're taking naps and being quiet today, good thing we have two dogs--they are doing their job of comforting--pretty sweet.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

I had more fun just sewing and "playing" with this paper and mist. My DS was posing for a shoot and was doing well, but as time went on he got a little restless..... These pictures were taken at the same time as this one on THIS layout.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Yesterday--(and today), I have a sick little boy home. My creative time was cut a little but I did manage to create this page based on the sketchy Thursdays sketch for this week (the layout was inspired by the October Afternoon blog):

Here are some closeups:

the pearls, butterfly, stamps and brad are from my stash. The rest is from the April kit at Scrapbook Circle

These butterfly stamps I found in the $1 bin at Michaels, it was part of a friends set.--cute huh?

(sorry about the size of my photos, it's either photobucket or blogger, and I'm tired of fighting with it!)

Oh, I forgot to mention that my grandma just LOVED the album! I was so glad that turned out okay. My cousin reminded me of other people that should be in it, (somehow the e-mail was lost in cyberspace when I developed the pictures--but was there another day....) So the whole thing was 46 pages!

My kids have the day off today, it all started ok with a trip to Kohl's for much needed tennis shoes....while there we--when I say this I refer to one of my nameless children had a melt down, "No, I will not pay that much for a pair of shoes when your feet are still growing." Almost sounded like this person got their arm chopped off or something...we found acceptable shoes. Then it was off to the girls department to find an appropriate dress--translate that to something she and I both agree on.....(we've been looking on and off for a couple of months now) We found a skirt and blouse, which EVERYONE was excited about because it took about 30 minutes. The brothers just didn't find the girl's department all that exciting....

After that we went to a FUN birthday party for my niece. We laughed and had a great time for two hours:

Okay, I want you to take note, the ears DD is wearing were cut with the cricut.

The feet and ears were also cut using the cricut on these easter eggs--TOTALLY cute right?! My SIL is amazingly creative, and I told her I was going to blog about her creations, for those in the know she used the paper dolls cartridge...

Fast forward until we get home eating lunch. They ask me to go swimming, their dad tells them they need to clean their rooms, a chorus starts wailing....then one lone voice says, "we never get to do anything fun!" REALLY?

Thursday, April 1, 2010

And I have to be quick about my share today--got tons to do and little time to do it in!

this flower I pictured right when I first saw the paper, it's super simple but fun. I cut one "flower" then used a pop dot to lift it off the page. The rub on is from American crafts and the lady bug on it is on the page I will be sharing tomorrow.....

This card came out better than I thought. I used the material paper in the line and ripped off the paper backing and rolled it. Once it was where I wanted I hot glued it to keep it together. The pearls I bought at Walmart (in the beading department) and topped them with glitter. For the stem I just lightly penciled in the lined and sewed over it erasing what I didn't cover. And for the leaf I dabbed diamond glaze with my finger putting the buttons on top, then covered it with glitter to hide fill in the blanks. I was just playing so it was SO fun to actually have something come out of the mess I made! :)